


All This Time

by pietromavximoff



Category: Harry Potter - Fandom, Marauders Era - Fandom, jily - Fandom, marauders - Fandom
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-13
Updated: 2015-10-13
Packaged: 2018-04-26 05:26:45
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,421
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4991977
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pietromavximoff/pseuds/pietromavximoff
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>James and Lily throughout their Hogwarts years, and when everyone realized that they're going to fall in love</p>
            </blockquote>





	All This Time

McGonagall realises it first. It’s the second day of classes and she sees tiny Lily Evans hurrying through the crowded hallway, looking down at her timetable every few seconds to make sure she’s going the right way. And then, to no surprise, Lily’s attention is drawn away from her surroundings a second too long and she trips over her own feet. McGonagall moves to help her, but stops in her tracks when she sees someone trip over and fall down on the cold ground next to her. It’s too obvious to be an accident, yet those who are laughing at Lily’s clumsiness are also laughing at James Potter’s, who, to McGonagall’s surprise, is also laughing. Lily turns to look at him and a small grin spreads across her face, because he could've kept running. They stay there for a whole minute, laughing at the ceiling and exchanging glances, until McGonagall forces herself to shoo them away for fear they’ll be stepped on. And she watches them go, running alongside each other just so they won’t fall behind, and she smiles softly, because she knows before either of them do.

Remus realizes next, when they’re all sitting down for breakfast one morning and Lily’s owl loses its grip on the package it was carrying, dropping it onto James’ toast. He pauses, looks up and recognises the light brown blur of feathers and, unconcerned, throws the small package to Lily, who looks over that precise moment and catches it reflexively. Remus looks between them, wondering if James got her attention right before he threw it or if Lily had seen the owl drop her post, but he knew he would have heard James speak, and he knew that Lily would have said something sooner. And as he looks back between the two of them, James is back to eating his toast nonchalantly and Lily is leaning on the table as she continues her conversation with her friend. And Remus grins slowly, because he’s figured it out before both of them. They’ve got that sort of awareness of each other that’s unconscious, almost reflexive, that would make them able to seek each other out even if they were on opposite ends of a room filled with hundreds of people.

Slughorn realizes it when he’s teaching sixth year potions, and he beckons the class to come forward in turn to smell the opaque, shimmering potion in the black cauldron. Ever-eager to learn, Lily is the first one up, and she closes her eyes as she inhales the swirling steam, and, almost involuntarily, the words “Quidditch jacket” slip out of her mouth before she steps away from the cauldron, her eyebrows knitted together. It only makes sense to Slughorn when James has his turn, and he mutters something about honey and vanilla to himself, shaking his head clear as he steps away from the potion. And Slughorn smiles in amazement, because James just became captain of the Gryffindor Quidditch team and only yesterday Lily asked him if there was a potion that could make her honey and vanilla perfume stop wearing off so easily. He’s handing a galleon to McGonagall the next week, as she smirks at the sight of them walking into the Great Hall, Lily hand in hand with David McGinn, James barely glancing at them when he walks in ten minutes later, because they still haven’t realised.

Peter realises when they’re in The Three Broomsticks, and Lily walks in with her hands in gloves and her eyes teary from the cold. James seems to sense her come in, and turns to see her sit on a stool, her head in her hands. Immediately, he gets up, muttering an excuse no one believes before making his way over to her. And he sits beside her and she knows he’s there but they don’t talk. Maybe they don’t need to talk. Maybe, when Lily finally turns her head so she’s looking at him, James sees that her eyes are red from tears, not from wind. Maybe, when James smiles at her softly, Lily understands that he’s there, and that he’ll sit there with her as long as she likes. As long as it takes until he sees her smile, as long as he hears her laugh, because if there’s one thing Peter knows, it’s that even though James makes people laugh almost effortlessly, the only person he’s ever really worried about being able to make laugh is Lily.

Sirius realises when it’s almost midnight, and James hasn’t come up to the dormitory since he left for his Head Boy rounds. He’s light on his feet as he checks the classroom James and Lily usually stay in during their patrols, but when he finds it empty, he curses that he left their map under his bed. He finds them twenty minutes later, in a very compromising position in a cramped broom cupboard. James grins sheepishly as Lily lets out a laugh to cover her embarrassment, and Sirius wonders, when he sees the way James leans down to rest his head on Lily’s shoulder as he laughs, and the way Lily’s smile is wider than he’s ever seen it when she does the same, how he didn’t pick it up sooner. Not that they liked each other, no, that wasn’t it. He had always known that. Everyone had always known that. But he had never noticed there was a kind of raw affection with them, when they let themselves be completely vulnerable with each other, when they let others see the rawness. And as Sirius walks back to the dormitories, he can’t help but get the feeling that they’re going to be together for the rest of their lives.

Lily realises when she’s half drunk and half asleep, the Firewhisky that made her heart race before seeming like nothing compared to how her heart pounds now as she looks at James. She supposes, as she watches him through her lashes, his head tilting back as he laughs at something, that she’s never fully appreciated the shade of his eyes, halfway between green and brown, or the way his smile is slightly crooked, halfway across his face, or the way he claps when he laughs, his hands meeting halfway in front of his chest. She knows she pays too much attention to the way he runs a hand through his hair, stopping halfway between dishevelled and completely tangled. She knows that she should take her eyes off him for at least a few seconds when he plays Quidditch, but whenever she’s halfway through a cheer or a laugh, his eyes always find her, and she can’t seem to drop her gaze. She’s known all those things for a while, but it’s only now, half drunk and half asleep in the common room, surrounded by Quidditch banners that are half-falling off the walls, empty bottles of Firewhisky and tired but electric conversation, that she understands fully. Everything happens in halves until the moment you know, and, after that, half seems much too uninviting to go back to.

James is the last to realize, when he’s under the invisibility cloak and sneaking to the kitchens in the dead of night, when he runs into Lily, and she’s tiptoeing around, too. Lily doesn’t ask what he’s doing, but follows him, tugging on the ends of the cloak and pulling it over herself. Somehow, they don’t make it to the kitchens. They take one of the secret passages, and it’s a blur getting out, running across the grounds, the grass tickling their feet and their laughs loud, nothing to bounce off, reaching the stars. But once they’re sitting under the birch tree, nothing but the dull moonlight to light up the dark sky, he wonders how time can seem to stand still for so long. Lily shifts, her hair falling across her shoulders as she moves closer to him, leaning her tired head against his chest, his heart hammering into her ear. And as they talk, about nothing and everything, it’s never been clearer to him that she’s the girl his world will stop for. She’s the girl his world has stopped for. And he has to choose, right now, if he wants to run with her or if he’ll let her pass him by, because she runs through life and doesn’t stop for anything. But he’s the same as her, and he’s never been more scared to stay in one spot than he is right now. So he doesn’t. He runs.


End file.
